Biblical Archaeology Evidences for the Accuracy of the Scriptures

THE MOABITE STONE

Discovered in Dhiban, Jordan, in 1868 by a Anglican medical missionary
by the name of F. A. Klein. The language is Moabite. The translation is by A. Lemaire in 1994.
The following is a list of some of the people, places and things that the tablet
has in common with the Scriptures.

"Omri had taken posession of the land of Medeba" (line 7)
Omri- 1Kings 16:16 ; king of Israel (the Northern Kingdom) 885-873 BC
Medeba- Numbers 21:30 ; a city

"And I built Baal Meon .... And I built Kiriathaim" (lines 9-10)
Beth Ball Meon- Joshua 13:7 Ezekiel 25:9 ; a city and Baal was a Cannanite fertility god
Kiriathaim- Joshua 13:19 Ezekiel 25:9 ; a city

"the men of Gad had dwelt in the land of Ataroth from of old, and the king of
Israel built Ataroth for himself," (line 10)
Gad- Genesis 30:11 ; a person/tribe/territory
Israel- Genesis 32:28 ; a person/nation/territory (mentioned 4 times)
Ataroth- Numbers 32:3 ; & 32:4 ; a city

"the king of Israel had built Jahaz" (line 18-19)
Jahaz- Numbers 21:23 ; a city

"I built Aroer, and made the highway through the Arnon" (line 26)
Aroer- Numbers 32:24 ; a city
Arnon- Numbers 21:13 ; a river

"I built Bezer, for it was in ruins" (line 27)
Bezer- Deuternomy 4:43 ; a city, location uncertain.

"And the house [of Dav]id dwelt in Horanaim" (line 31)
The translation of the above line is uncertain due to the condition of the tablet and is in
dispute. (ref: B&S Vol.9, No.2, Spring 1996)

Biblical Archaeology evidences for the accuracy of the Scriptures.

Samaria Ostraca identifying Clans of Manasseh

Evidence for the locations of the clans of Manasseh, son of Joseph, were discovered
in 1910 under the direction of G. A. Reisner in Samaria ( the capital city established
880 BC by king Omri ). Discovered were 63 potsherds with
inscriptions written in ink, called ostraca ( plural ) or ostracon (singular).
Though seemingly a minor find, they remain among the earliest of the archaeological discoveries
of ancient Hebrew writings. Commercial records that document the transaction of oil and
wine from various regions of Samaria to various officials. Thirty of them identify
the clan/district name of 7 of the 10 offspring of Manasseh identified in Joshua 17:2-3
when they were being assigned their territory in chapter 17. Each of the five sons
of verse 2 are identified, Abiezer ( 1 ostracon),
Asriel ( 2 ostraca ), Helek ( 6 ostraca ), Shechem ( 1 ostracon ), and Shemida (
17 ostraca ). Only two of the daughters of Zelophehad (verse 17:3) are identified,
Hoglah ( 2 ostraca ) and Noah ( 1 ostracon ). The potsherds are estimated to date
approximately 784-783 BC. The allocation of the territories took place in
the 15th century BC and one might suspect that clan designations could have possibly
passed out of use by that time. However, the locations and the spellings are
unchanged. An indication of the strength of the clan loyalty of the nomadic Israelite
tribes and a testimony to the accuracy of the Biblical records. (ref. B&S
Vol 10, No. 1, Winter 1997)

Biblical Archaeology evidences for the accuracy of the Scriptures.

Customs and laws of Nuzi

A library of tablets dating from 1600 to 1350 BC was located at Nuzi, an ancient
trade center in Assyria. The site possibly had been settled since 3000 BC and was first
called Gasur. Among the more interesting discoveries in the tablets were some
of the social and religious practices of the periods as recorded in the deeds, wills,
marriage agreements, and adoptions. They possibly shed light
on many of the customs that are documented in the Scriptures that may appear to us
as being unusual (wierd?).

In the case of a childless couple, the wife could locate another wife for the husband.

"If Gilimninu (the wife) will not bear children,
Gilimninu shall take a woman of Lulluland as a wife for Shennma (the husband)."

Sarah provided Hagar for Abraham (Genesis 16:3) for the purposes of bearing children.
Should the first wife later bear a son, he would rank over a son born to the second
wife. Such was the case when Isaac was born (Genesis 21:1-10)

Adoptions were used, a man could adopt a woman as a sister and he agreed to provide
a husband for the woman, and a childless couple could adopt a slave or a man lacking
property. Possibly applying to the relationship of Abraham to Sarah (Genesis 20:2) and also that
of Eliezer (Genesis 15:2) in Abraham's household. The adopted person was obligated to care for
the needs, weep over and bury them when they died.

Fathers were not required to select the first born son as the heir, the could select
any of the sons as they so pleased. Example Jacob's selection of Joseph and then
passing this right of inheritance onto the sons of Joseph, Ephriam and Manasseh as though they
were his sons. (Genesis 48:5)

A father was required to find a wife for the sons (Genesis 24:4) and arrange
marriage contracts for the daughters. If the parents
died, the heir was required to arrange the marriage of his sisters. But in this
case the heir had less authority and the sister had the right of refusal.

Wills referred to the family gods as symbols of ownership and authority and were
highly valued. Possibly explaining why Laban was so concerned that Rachel had
taken the images when Jacob was fleeing Laban (Genesis 31). Tablets were also highly
valued and passed down from generation to generation.

Also there were tablets documenting that a heir could legally sell their birthright to a
brother. Example, Esau exchanging his birthright for soup in a time of need
(Genesis 25:29-34).

Also found were tablets recording blessings pronounced by aging men just before
an expected death. As did Jacob in Genesis 48-49, Moses in
Deuteronomy 33 and Joshua in Joshua 23-24.

Therefore, many of the recorded customs in Genesis are
demonstrated to be consistent with the customs of the ancient mideast societies.
(ref. B&S vol. 7, No. 1, Winter 1994)

C14 dating affirms Scripture/Scripture affirms C14 dating!

San Francisco Chronicle

A judgment about Solomon Evidence supports
Hebrew kingdoms in biblical times

David Perlman,
Chronicle Science Editor

Deep in the ruins of a Hebrew town sacked nearly 3,000
years ago by an Egyptian Pharaoh, scientists say they have
discovered new evidence for the real-life existence of the
Bible's legendary kingdoms of David and Solomon.

The evidence refutes recent claims by other researchers who
insist that the biblical monarchs were merely mythic
characters, created by scholars and scribes of antiquity who
made up the tales long after the events to buttress their own
morality lessons.

The debate, however, is not likely to subside, for
archaeology is a field notable for its lengthy quarrels among
partisans, however scientific they may be.

The latest evidence comes from Israeli and Dutch
archaeologists and physicists after seven years of digging at
a historic site called Tel Rehov. The site is in the Jordan
valley of Israel, where successive settlements rose and fell
over the centuries.

Using highly sophisticated techniques for establishing
dates through the decay rate of radioactive carbon, the
scientists have pinned down the time of a disputed moment in
history, recorded in the Bible, when a Pharaoh now known as
Shoshenq I invaded Jerusalem.

As the book of Chronicles relates in the Old Testament,
Shoshenq (the Bible called him Shishak) came "with twelve
hundred chariots and threescore thousand horsemen" and
plundered Israel's capital, as well as such towns and
fortresses as Rehov, Megiddo and Hazor.

The Pharaoh later listed those conquests on a monument in
the temple of Amun at Karnak, where the Egyptian city of Luxor
now stands.

11=Gaza, Genesis 10:19, Joshua 10:41

12=Makkedah, Joshua 10:10

13=Rubuti,

14=Aijalon, Joshua 21:24

15=Kiriathaim?,

16=Beth- horon, Joshua 10:10

17=Gibeon, Joshua 9:3

18=Mahanaim, Genesis 32:2, Joshua13:26

19=Shaud[y],

20=?,

21=Adoraim, 2 Chronicles 11:9

22=Hapharaim, Joshua 19:9

23=Rehob, Numbers 13:21, Joshua 19:28

24=Betshan,

25= Shunem, Joshua 19:18

26=Taanach, Joshua 12:21

27=Megiddo, Joshua 12:21

28=Adar, Joshua 15:3

29=Yadhamelek,

(List and second photo from http://www.specialtyinterests.net/sheshonk.html)

The new timetable places Shoshenq's rampage and looting at
Rehov in the 10th century rather than the 9th, a highly
significant difference. It sets the date at about 925 B.C.,
some five years after Solomon was said to have died, and some
80 years earlier than other archaeologists maintain.

Those scholars, known in the world of archaeology as
"minimalists," insist that both David and Solomon were little
more than tribal chieftains, and certainly not the mighty
monarchs of the Bible.

A report on the new evidence appears today in the journal
Science by Hendrik Bruins, a desert researcher at Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev in Israel, Johannes van der Plicht of
the Center for Isotope Research at the University of Groningen
in the Netherlands, and Amihai Mazar of the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem, the principal archaeologist at Tel Rehov.

In a telephone interview, Mazar said that one specific
"layer of destruction" at the site yielded a harvest of
charred grain seeds and olive pits that enabled his colleagues
to date them with an unusually high level of precision. The
dates of both earlier and later layers showed clearly how the
successive layers of occupation could be determined from the
12th through the 9th centuries B.C., he said.

"They provide a precise archaeological anchor for the
united monarchies of the time of David and Solomon," Mazar
said. "The pottery we found there also tells us that the
conquest dates from the same period as Meggido, when its
mighty gates and walls and temples were also destroyed by
Shoshenq's armies."

More than 40 years ago the late Yigael Yadin, who won fame
as an army officer during Israel's war for independence,
turned to archaeology and after excavating the imposing ruins
at Megiddo maintained that they were in fact destroyed during
the so-called Solomonic period.

Recently, however, a group of archaeologists led by Israel
Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University working at Megiddo has
insisted that the so-called Solomon's gate there dates from a
much later time -- perhaps 100 or even 200 years after
Solomon.

Finkelstein read a copy of the Mazar report that was sent
him by e-mail. After replying that Mazar "is a fine scholar,"
he insisted that "there are many problems with his
archaeological data" and that the samples of material used for
the radiocarbon dating are at best questionable.

In the past, Finkelstein has accused Mazar of harboring a
"sentimental, somewhat romantic approach to the archaeology of
the Iron Age," according to an earlier account in Science.

On Thursday, however, one of the leaders in the archaeology
of Israel, Professor Lawrence E. Stager, who is director of
Harvard University's Semitic Museum, dismissed the claims of
Finkelstein and the other archaeologists who share his views.

"Mazar and his colleagues have now put another nail in the
coffin of Finkelstein's theories," Stager said. "There's no
question that Rehov and the other cities that Shoshenq
conquered were indeed there at the time of Solomon.

"We don't need to rely any more only on the Bible or on
Shoshenq's inscriptions at Karnak to establish that Solomon
and his kingdom really existed, because we now have the superb
evidence of the radiocarbon dates."

copied from http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/11/MN24970.DTL

Radio-dating backs up biblical text

An ancient waterway, described in the Bible, has been
located and radiocarbon-dated to around 700 BC1.

The half-kilometre Siloam Tunnel still carries water
from the Gihon Spring into Jerusalem's ancient city of
David. According to verses in Kings 2 and Chronicles 2
2,
it was built during the reign of the King Hezekiah -
between 727 BC and 698 BC - to protect the city's water
supply against an imminent Assyrian siege. Critics argue
that a stone inscription close to the exit dates the
tunnel at around 2 BC.

To solve the conundrum, geologist Amos Frumkin, of
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and colleagues
looked at the decay of radioactive elements - such as
carbon in plants and thorium in stalactites - in tunnel
samples.

The plaster lining the tunnel was laid down around
700 BC, says Frumkin's team. A plant trapped inside the
waterproof layer clocked in at 700-800 BC, whereas a
stalactite formed around 400 BC. "The plant must have
been growing before the tunnel was excavated; the
stalactite grew after it was excavated," explains
Frumkin.

The study "makes the tunnel's age certain", says
archaeologist Henrik Bruins of Ben-Gurion University of
the Negev, Israel. The Siloam Tunnel is now the
best-dated Iron Age biblical structure so far
identified.

The remains of buildings and structures described in
the Bible are notoriously difficult to find. Specimens
are rare, poorly preserved, hard to identify and often
troublesome to access. Says James Jones, Bishop of
Liverpool, UK: "This scientific verification of
historical details in the Bible challenges those who do
no wish to take it seriously."

Tunnel vision

The samples also help to explain how the tunnel was
built. The passage is sealed with layers of plaster, the
deepest and oldest of which is directly above the
bedrock, with no sediment between. This shows that the
plaster was applied immediately after the tunnel was
built, Frumkin says.

"It's also quite unique to find well-preserved plant
remains in plaster," says Bruins. Workers may have made
up huge quantities outside the tunnel, where the plants
could have become mixed in, and then taken it inside.

Large enough to walk inside, the Siloam Tunnel
zigzags through an ancient hill. Its carved inscription
describes how two teams of men, starting on opposite
sides of the mountain, managed to meet in the middle.
They may have followed a natural fissure in the
limestone rock, Bruin suggests.

It's quite unique to find
well-preserved plant remains in plaster

Henrik BruinsBen-Gurion
University

Unusually, the inscription does not name King
Hezekiah - other monarchs commonly boasted of their
architectural achievements in stone. The carving is six
metres inside the tunnel, so it must have been made by
lamplight.

"It wasn't meant to be seen by the public," says
Biblical historian Andrew Millard of Liverpool
University, UK. "I think it was the workmen recording
what an extraordinary feat they had
accomplished."

Recent archaeological findings in Samaria shed light on the incomplete story of the destruction of Shiloh, the ancient capital of Israel.

An uncovered broken clay pitcher embedded in a layer of reddish ashes completes the story of the devastation of Shiloh, where the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, was placed during the period of the Judges, and essentially served as Israel’s capital during the early part of the First Israelite commonwealth.

Shiloh served as the spiritual center of Israel for 369 years until its destruction. The Bible does not inform us of the story of its ruin, but these archaeological discoveries shed light on the capital’s tragic demise.

The book of Samuel tells us of a battle between the Philistines and the Israelites, during which the Philistines prevailed, and during which the Holy Ark was captured by them. After hearing the news of the defeat from a messenger, Eli the High Priest, the leader of his time, who lost his two sons in the battle, fell back and died. This is all we learn of the defeat from the Book of Samuel.

We know that Shiloh was destroyed shortly thereafter. We know from the book of Jeremiah that Shiloh was destroyed by the Philistines. These new archaeological findings tell us of how it happened. After the battle, which took place at Even Ha’ezel, near modern day Rosh Ha’ayin, the Philistines moved on to destroy Shiloh, the capital. The ashes found attest to a devastating fire the occurred at the site. The dating of the clay pitcher, 1,050 BCE, correlates with the dating of the events depicted in Book of Samuel.

Avital Selah, director of the Tel Shiloh site, told Tazpit News Agency that these findings were discovered during a massive dig of the Tel Shiloh site, in which some 1000 youth volunteers from across Israel participated. Similar findings were discovered thirty years ago, including food leftovers, and their dating is also set at 1,050 BCE, but the recently discovered layer of ashes completes the story regarding the story of the destruction of the ancient Israelite capital of Shiloh.

from http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/archaeological-discovery-sheds-light-on-the-mystery-of-shiloh/2013/01/10/?src=ataglance

Once again archaeology confirms the Bible ! And the Bible confirms archaeological dating methods !

The Pools at Siloam

"Workers repairing a sewage pipe in the Old City of Jerusalem have
discovered the biblical Pool of Siloam, a freshwater reservoir that was
a major gathering place for ancient Jews making religious pilgrimages
to the city.

The pool was fed by the now famous Hezekiah's Tunnel and is "a
much grander affair" than archeologists previously believed, with three
tiers of stone stairs allowing easy access to the water, said Hershel
Shanks, editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review, which reported the
find Monday.

The newly discovered pool is less than 200 yards from another Pool
of Siloam, this one a reconstruction built between AD 400 and 460 by
the Empress Eudocia of Byzantium, who oversaw the rebuilding of several
biblical sites.

The site of the first Pool of Siloam constructed in the 8th century BC by Judean
King Hezekiah, who foresaw the likelihood that the Assyrians would lay
siege to Jerusalem and knew a safe water supply would be required to
survive the attack, is still unknown. It was presumably destroyed in 586 BC when
Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar razed the city.

The pool was discovered by a repair team excavating a damaged
sewer line last fall under the supervision of Eli Shukron of the Israel
Antiquities Authority. As soon as Shukron saw two steps uncovered, he
stopped the work and called in Reich, who was excavating at the Gihon
Spring.

When they saw the steps, Shukron said, "we were 100% sure it was the Siloam Pool."

With winter approaching, the two men had to hurry their excavation so the sewer could be repaired before the rainy season.

As they began digging they uncovered three groups of five stairs
each separated by narrow landings. The pool was about 225 feet long,
and they unearthed steps on three sides.

They do not yet know how wide and how deep the pool was because
they have not finished the excavation. The fourth side lies under a
lush garden — filled with figs, pomegranates, cabbages and other fruits
— behind a Greek Orthodox Church, and the team has not yet received
permission to cut a trench through the garden.

"We need to know how big it is," Charlesworth said. "This may be the most significant and largest miqveh [ritual bath] ever found."

The excavators have been able to date the pool fairly precisely
because of two fortunate occurrences that implanted unique artifacts in
the pool area.

When ancient workmen were plastering the steps before facing them
with stones, they either accidentally or deliberately buried four coins
in the plaster. All four are coins of Alexander Jannaeus, a Jewish king
who ruled Jerusalem from 103 to 76 BC. That provides the earliest date
at which the pool could have been constructed.

Similarly, in the soil in one corner of the pool, they found about
a dozen coins dating from the period of the First Jewish Revolt against
Rome, which lasted from AD 66 to 70. That indicates the pool had begun
to be filled in by that time.

Because the pool sits at one of the lowest spots in Jerusalem,
rains flowing down the valley deposited mud into it each winter. It was
no longer being cleaned out, so the pool quickly filled with dirt and
disappeared, Shanks said."

Biblical Archaeology evidences for the accuracy of the Scriptures.

Biblical archaeology evidences for ancient Semetic presences through out
the Middle East that verify the Scriptural records. Including the Moabite stone
from Moab Jordan, Samaria Ostraca identifying Clans of Manasseh, and
Customs and laws of Nuzi from the Nuzi tablets.
Biblical ArchaeologyMoabMoabite stoneSamaria OstracaNuzi tablets

Biblical archaeology evidences for ancient Semetic presences through out
the Middle East that verify the Scriptural records. Including the Moabite stone
from Moab Jordan, Samaria Ostraca identifying Clans of Manasseh, and
Customs and laws of Nuzi from the Nuzi tablets.
Biblical ArchaeologyMoabMoabite stoneSamaria OstracaNuzi tablets

Biblical archaeology evidences for ancient Semetic presences through out
the Middle East that verify the Scriptural records. Including the Moabite stone
from Moab Jordan, Samaria Ostraca identifying Clans of Manasseh, and
Customs and laws of Nuzi from the Nuzi tablets.
Biblical ArchaeologyMoabMoabite stoneSamaria OstracaNuzi tablets